How do you know you are safe? What is it about being safe, feeling safe, knowing you are safe that actually lets you know that someone has got your back?
As far back as the industrial revolution we have seen the evolution of safety as a system. Back in the 1700’s the idea was that safety comprised of three essential domains, being technology, human and organisation. The concept was that if the technology, the people and the organisation was safe then logically it would follow that everyone would be safe. But how do you know humans are safe? Humans being emotional and complex beings are individually designed to feel safe based on their own experiences of the world around them. Instinctively humans are designed to want human connection and what we know from research is that humans have in common though is that instinctively they feel safe when they feel valued, heard and genuinely appreciated.
Safety is more complex than just the physical environment. For proper safety to occur you need three elements for humans. People need to feel that the physical space around them is safe to work in. The second is their own individual psychological safety and then the third space is the social space around them. Do they feel the people around them genuinely care about them? Do they feel that they are valued and loved? To date there is little to no work within the social safety space.
A few years ago, a friend of my son came over for dinner. It was a random mid-weeknight, and, on that night, he told me it was his birthday. I quickly went into the kitchen with my daughter and we quietly whipped up a birthday cake for him which my daughter then decorated with icing, candles and cocktail umbrellas. She thought it made the cake looks spectacular. It was only after we started walking from the kitchen through to the living room that we noticed each cocktail umbrella starting to catch on fire. By the time we got the living room each cocktail umbrella had exploded on the cake and we were left with a cake covered in cinders. It was a disaster.
But here is the thing. When we went out with the cake, my son’s friend, who was in his early 20’s got really emotional and said, “Thank you, this is the first birthday cake anyone has ever made me since I was 6 years old”. To me it was a disaster. To my daughter it was a hilarious moment in time and to him it meant to world that we cared enough about him to make the cake.
And this is where the concept of safety gets fun. From a physical safety perspective, it really was a disaster. there are no two ways about it. I was poised with the fire extinguisher make no mistake but from his psychological and social safety perspective he felt loved. To this day that young man still comes to the house and thinks of us as his family. All because we made a cake on a whim to recognise his birthday.
How much risk is your business under just because your staff don’t feel like they belong? How socially safe is your business?
For more information on social safety contact us at www.howesafe.com
